Accessing the Root account

Using my admin account, I'm not able to backup files in my wife's home directory. I decided to enable the Root account and use it each time I do my weekly backup. I've gone into NetInfomanager and enabled it, but when I log out, I don't see the "other" account that I've read I'm supposed to. It seems pretty straight forward; am I just missing something?

did you log out of root after you were done? what are your macs specs?

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you. As far as I can tell, I was never logged into Root; I simply enabled it. I have never been able to get to a login screen that would allow me to log into Root. I cant really imagine there's a problem with my Mac. I presume it's just me treadding in foreign waters.

Dual 2.0 Ghz G5
1.5 Ghz RAM

try giong to system preferences>accounts>and see if your wifes account is listed and what limitations, if any, there are to that account.

System Prefs >> Account is where youll find a checkbox for listing user names and having a blank to enter "root" or "System Administrator" to log in as root. or you can simply open the Terminal and have shell access to switch user to superuser(root) by typing: su